I liked Dunkirk, unexpectedly. It an epic to be seen and enjoyed. It should only be seen in IMAX, as I believe that the visceral reaction I felt was the bone-shaking sound and the intense filmed detail that causes brain overheating. It’s not a bad feeling.

To be seen and enjoyed, once, because I also believe it was not entirely the filmmaking. It is far from flawless and I know factually I would not see it again. The first twenty minutes are very soft, and Mr. Hans Zimmer’s bombastic score is at times almost comically mistimed: they’re going to bring down Western civilization the creaks, strings and drums seem to say…as Mr. Mark Rylance stacks life-preservers.

But see it, if nothing else for the various filmmaking lessons I’ve been trying to impart here for years. The editing is both the savior of the film, and the saboteur of its best parts.

The man next to us chastised my using a computer (even though, ironically, you wouldn’t have been able to hear someone shouting ‘free speech’ in that crowded theater. I put it away with a begrudging ‘fine’, which I feel bad about. Of course, I didn’t even look at my notes. I hate being wrong so much, I detail it until I’m right again.

Firstly, it’s a strangely experimental film, with only the barest character development and dialog, which for the budget, is joyous to watch. The film, bumping around as it does back and forth in time, builds tension as you don’t know the fate of various characters even as you another set advancing. It works, and the film’s trust in the audience to keep track of the threads is heartening.

The saboteur enters during the film’s most impressive sequences, the aerial dogfights over open water. How I wish the fashion of the single shot had caught on to Mr. Nolan and his editor Mr. Lee Smith. I could have watched the primitive crosshairs chasing fighter planes over La Manche for hours, let alone minutes, let alone the seconds of each shot we were given.

This is what the single shot was very much imagined for. The lost Bazanian tension I gave up not getting to watch what I know was shot was actively painful, crying out, really, each time he cutaway. Aww, you say, I wanted to see that.

Ending on the most positive, it’s nice, heartwarming really, to see Mr. Tom Hardy as an uncompromised hero. Yes, it’s in his contract to play the whole film masked behind a RAF goggles, but if that’s how you got him to do integrity, we needed it, and thank you.

So, support 15 perf and get out there. You’re subsidizing experimental film (not video), and you won’t regret it. Until you look at this.

They owe me £12! People don’t understand: the stuff below isn’t a bit, it’s an invoice. For the Man of Steel. Not being in IMAX.